All user reviews of 4/5 for the iZotope Ozone 4

I have been using ozone 4 for a few months now, it’s a great program. Even when I was new to mixing and mastering I could still work this program to its fullest. Its really easy to understand and runs great with my Toshiba laptop. The manual is very easy to understand as well, I downloaded the manual it didn’t come with a hard copy for me.


SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

The preset are great in Ozone 4 and easy to use. The software over all is easy to use for the beginner to the pro. As a beginner always ask for help from someone who knows what there doing and my friend is getting Ozone 4 to teach me how to mix and master with it. This program is very stable, I have never had a crash yet and hope that I never will. I need this program to stay stable for me. I plan on using this for many years to come.

OVERALL OPINION


Overall its great!, Ozone 4 can help you with your mastering as well as mixing. There is a demo for Ozone 4 and I say try it before you by it.... It may not be for everyone yet for me it is a great software. I get better with this program the more I use it. The best thing about this tool is the price. You can get this sound (known to every aspiring engineer in the world as "That Sound") by dropping a few grand on hardware, or you can get it for a couple hundred bucks. Yeah, it really is that good. It should be in every project studio's rig. Right off the bat, the presets add body and girth to your mixes. EQ, Compression, Loudness and Maximization are just the beginning!
I even use it as an insert on my synths and vocals.

Izotope makes good products and install isn't a mess. You are pretty much up and running in a few minutes. Just load up your daw, record and start. It comes ready to use no matter what your skill level. Ozone is really a mastering plugin for individual tracks or your entire mix. It comes with presets for all these applications. All the various effects are laid out sensibly. Ozone has a great many tools to utilize. You have the usual suspects of compressors and eq, but you also get a loudness maximizer and a dynamics processor. They even throw in a harmonic exciter.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

I got this to use strictly for mix mastering. I did try it on individual tracks though. The presets, for the most part sound overdone. The use of the dynamics and the harmonics settings can be dangerous if you don't know what you're going. Tracks can get bloated very fast. To the untrained ear, it would appear that this is a great plugin but in reality most of the single track presets are really just overkill.
In a mix setting I liked it better, when used in moderation. Again, you have to take it easy with some of the more exotic functions. You can really choke out a good mix with this plugin if you aren't careful. Generally all I need is eq, compression, and some loudness maximization. The performance is decent. It isn't the lightest plug out there. I eventually got rid of it because I was only using it for one function and it didn't even do that very well. It was hogging cpu at that... I've since moved to using Waves plugs for mastering.

OVERALL OPINION

The presets are nice, especially for beginners. I would almost say this is a good learning all in one mastering plugin. After a while though, it starts to sound gimmicky on all but the most meager settings. But for the price, it's not a bad vst at all. If you take the time to learn it, you can get a lot of use. Don't expect it to "improve" your mixes by leaps and bounds. It's meant to be used as supplemental mastering. Not a sonic boob job. Still, I recommend it if you're on a budget.